I understand the confusion. Because of the implant, I got a medical bracelet that says my name, that I have a cochlear implant, not to do an MRI, and I read lips. I wear it on my watch-wearing wrist. When I tried it on my left wrist, it was making too much noise and bothered me when I wrote. I be a southpaw, indeedy. [ Read more… ]

I went to my parents’ in Fort Worth last Wednesday and returned yesterday. I took my laptop and a couple of books that I’m working on for getAbstract. None of them got used or read. My parents don’t have a wireless network and I forgot my USB drive, so I couldn’t get files to my laptop.

Sure, I could’ve connected my laptop to the network by taking the cable out of Mom’s computer and putting into mine. But someone in the family was almost always on the Internet. My daughter chatting and playing with MySpace, my son doing puzzles, Mom taking a break and playing games, and siblings checking work stuff.

Who wants to fool with a cable when all this is going on? I never planned to take a complete vacation from work, but that’s what happened. At least, I kept up with my emails so I didn’t fall behind there. Otherwise, I’d be a stress ball. I think a lot of people took it easy for the long weekend beginning with Good Friday, which kept email more manageable.(more…)

Like I would let this day go by without saying a word about my dad who celebrates 75 years of his life today. Dad may not read my blog or even know what a blog is, but he’s largely responsible for who I am today (Mom and me, too, but it’s not our birthdays.).

I wrote about my dad in Stories of Strength. The younger kids love him as he can imitate Donald Duck. His office is full of Donald Duck stuff as a result of his wife, children, and friends buying him stuff. An accidental collection, for sure.

He loves sports. He was my go to parent for that as I played softball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer. Heck, I even did track (shotput and discus). Dad played football for James Madison High in Brooklyn and was offered a scholarship. But instead, he had to go to the local college and help with the family business.

Happy three-quarters of a century, Dad! It’s appropriate that his birthday is on Super Bowl XL Sunday. Dad’s one XL guy! 🙂

From the sponsor: OK, get ready to crack lawyer jokes. But seriously, there are justifiable times when we need a personal injury lawyer.

Sorry for being a day late, but yesterday was a busy day. It’s amazing how many people I’ve met that share the same birthday as me. I know with only 365 days a year, millions share the same birthday. But I’ve never met so many people who have January 20 birthdays compared to other family member birthdays.

One is a dear friend from when we worked at GTE together. She started working there a week before me. An admin person came up to us asking if there was a mix up on our birthdays. That’s when we learned we had the same birthday.

Two kids in my son’s preschool class and one of the staff members there were also born on January 20. One of my second cousins and my long-time friend since childhood’s son. Amazing, eh?

Parents enjoy Halloween. It’s the time after that becomes a problem… kids asking for candy every day until the loot is gone. Some trick ‘r treaters manage to get enough candy to last them till the next Halloween. What parent wants to deal with that or be tempted to steal a few for herself?

The solution? Trade candy for a prize. The more candy the child turns in, the bigger the prize. We did this with my oldest and started it last year with my middle child. It’s worked well. They only keep about five pieces, if that much … eat a couple of them after trick ‘r treating (hey, they walked a lot, so they gotta refuel!) and then save a couple for the next day. Then it’s over. Thank goodness.(more…)

I got an email from an anonymous coward (email bounced) saying that it’s wrong to use a div in the headers. Gee, really?

Excuse my ‘tude. I appreciate it when people write in about a mistake of mine, but not when they do it anonymously and with a finger shaking attitude that says, “Wrong-o, buster!” Naturally, it puts a person on the defensive.

Once a person wrote a harsh email about a Web site where I was one of a handful of people who was cc’d on email sent from readers. I wrote a reply as if I had a smile on my face (not a smirk, mind you) and thanked the person. He immediately apologized for his tone and followed with a few pleasant words.

It’s tempting — I’ve been there and I’ve given in a few times — to write a hurtful email to someone who aggravates you. It’s an awful feeling that seems like it won’t go away until you speak your mind. Doing so never has a happy ending while a positive response can. You never know if you and that person cross paths again. Better to cross it on amicable terms.

When running into a difficult situation, my mom takes her five-year test of time. She asks, “Will it matter five years from now?” I wish it were that easy. A situation has bugged me for a while now and my nerves won’t let go. I haven’t acted on it and don’t plan to. Perhaps, writing an email or letter that you never send could help. This didn’t work for me. I just stay busy, which keeps me from thinking about it too often.

What timing. I read the following Slovakian proverb while writing this.

When I lived in Washington, DC, I reviewed a membership directory of one of the organizations to which I belonged. There was a Meryl who had my maiden name. Maybe to many of you that having folks out there who share your name is no big deal, but it’s always an interesting find for me. I see many Paul Evanses and Michael (my brother) out there. But Elisa (my sister) and Meryl are a whole ‘nother ballgame.

When Paul was in the Air Force, he ran into problems thanks to his name and SSN . He got his pay stub one payday and it was for $0.00. He went to the finance people and asked about it. They said he had an Article 15 judgement against me. He told them, he did not. They claimed he did. Did not. Did too! Did not! Did so!

He had to get my commander to tell them that, no he did not have a judgement against Paul and then they wanted to confirm that I was Paul A. Evans, SSN ###-##-#### and that was no. The SSN was the same as Paul’s with only ONE digit being different. Plus, evil Paul’s middle name was Allan while mine is Allen.

When someone pulled up the records, he could only assume that his name must have been the next one in line and they missed. It took three months to get it straightened out. The finance department had to pay partial payments in cash until he started getting his pay back. But they can’t pay 100 percent on a partial payment, only 80 percent, so he got a good check at the end of it.

Happy 4th of July to all fellow Americans! I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. It be hot, hot, hot in Texas. Even muggy (ick), but it makes swimming extra nice especially with the little Snavelings.

I am now a member of Flickr. If you want to become buds, you can find me there as MerylK. Creative name, eh? Don’t have too many public photos yet (in other words, just one).

Quickly: if you or anyone you know is familiar with WEP, WAP, IPSEC, please help. Email me if you know of experts and I’ll contact them. Thanks.

I’ve been so busy lately that as soon as I remember to do something, I forget. For the past couple of weeks, I wanted to write the meryl’s notes newsletter for June. It looks like I’m going to miss it as there’s no chance I’ll get it done and distributed today. Since the newsletter is informal, I didn’t want to kill myself to get it done when I have twoothers to distribute and a third in the making. Heck, I didn’t have time to write my daughter, who is at camp, an email yesterday (first time I’ve missed since she’s been gone).

Been getting to know Coldfusion (cfm). Am having a blast. I use the concepts I learned to create dynamic pages in PHP. It’s tricky since PHP and CFM are different, so when I find a problem in the code, I can’t use PHP as guidance. Databases don’t come to me naturally. It’s weird because I love geeky stuff and software, but my brain isn’t wired for it. But I did get the database working with Coldfusion and have other ideas for other projects. I’ll report on how I do things in cfm soon.

Reading Why I Deleted Email Interviews inspired my newest article, Why I Am Stuck Doing E-mail Interviews. Donna’s article is excellent and that’s why I was motivated to write my perspective. I try to educate people on the idiosyncrasies of leading life as a person who is deaf at Bionic Ear Blog. In fact, doing this blog helped me discover things about me that my hearing loss impacted. I grew up with an “I can do anything except talk on the phone without the relay” attitude. Now, I’m older and wiser and accept that’s not the case.(more…)

I rarely write about my life. It’s too straight-laced and light on opinions for it to be interesting. But in honor of my first entry, I am writing about today’s crazy day.

A little history: When I went to pick my youngest, I get out of my car and was typing on my Sidekick II and closed the door. Since locking the door is a habit like putting on the seat belt, guess what happened? I left my key in the starter and the doors locked.

It happened again today only I was not the person who did it. Paul was. We’ll get there in a minute. Paul had the day off. So he picked up our older son and took him to an appointment. He waited longer than usual for our son to come our of his summer program. Then he wanted to stop at home first to change pants.

Late already! They showed up for the appointment 10 after, but the person had already left. She left a message saying that it was 10 after. The answering machine said it was 3:06. The appointment went down the drain. Strike one.

I’m at the doctor with my oldest as we both had appointments. She finished and I was waiting on the doctor. Bzz! I look at the Sidekick. “Damn it.”

I panicked as I knew Paul was picking up our youngest. “I just locked myself out of the car with the baby in it.” It’s a balmy 85 degrees here today and we know how cars get hotter than outside. Thankfully, we were finishing up when the nightmare began. Luckily, Paul remote started the car, so the car had air conditioning.

Not long after I left, another message comes in. “The remote start stopped.” This started the loud clock ticking in my head as I had to run home to get the spare keys before rescuing my boys. I’m praying for green lights and no accidents.

Just before we get home, my daughter picks up my briefcase as she was going to take it in for me. She picked it up upside down and everything fell out. I didn’t care as my son was my first priority and my obsession with organization had to take a backseat. I zoomed in the house, grabbed every key to be on the safe side even though I knew which one worked with the car, zoomed back out and took off to save my son.

Only four lights stood between the keys and my son and every one had to turn red as soon as I arrived. Finally, as I saw Paul and his car, I wildly and repeatedly clicked on the FOB until Paul opened the door. Maria, my son’s wonderful teacher, suggested us making copies of our keys and leaving them with her. Good idea.